Dangerous Liaisons? Friendships Between Men in Western History and Culture

While literary depictions often have romanticized male friendships, this chapter attempts to move beyond such conventional images, analyzing Richard Ford’s 1986 novel The Sportswriter as a literary deconstruction of the myth of indissoluble friendships between men. In particular, the chapter will prove the influence of male attachments on hegemonic masculinity, which contributes to emotionally separating men from one another by pitting masculinity against emotions and, especially, by promoting homophobia and the fear of homosexuality. Although much of this chapter thus deconstructs the myth of indissoluble friendships between men, it will conclude by underlining both the feasibility and the desirability of recuperating the emotional attachments between (heterosexual) men, which would necessarily entail fighting homophobia as well as other forms of social discrimination.